Football at the 2024 Summer Olympics: participants, format, where and when matches will take place

On the 26th of July, the main event of the sports world of the last four years - the Summer Olympics in Paris - will start. The Dailysports team tells you what you need to know about one of the disciplines of the games - football.

Football at the 2024 Summer Olympics: what is the format?

28 teams will take part in the football tournament: 16 in the men's competition and 12 in the women's competition.

The men's competition is open to players born after 1 January 2001, but each team is allowed to enter up to three players who exceed this age limit.

There are no age restrictions in the women's tournament.

The 16 men's national teams are divided into four groups of four teams each. The top two teams from each quartet will advance to the playoffs, which consists of a quarter-final, semi-final, third place match and final.

In the women's tournament, the national teams are also divided into quartets, but into three groups. The two best teams from each group, as well as the two best teams, which will take the third place in the overall ranking, will go to the play-offs, which will be held similarly to the play-offs in the men's tournament.

Recall that the Olympic tournament, like the World Cup, features a third-place match.

Football at the 2024 Summer Olympics: who will play?

In the men's and women's tournaments, the French team qualified as the host, but other teams had to pass the qualification sieve.

Participants in the men's tournament:

• Group A: France, USA, Guinea, New Zealand
• Group B: Argentina, Morocco, Iraq, Ukraine
• Group C: Uzbekistan, Spain, Egypt, Dominican Republic.
• Group D: Japan, Paraguay, Mali, Israel

Participants in the women's tournament:

• Group A: France, Colombia, Canada, New Zealand
• Group B: USA, Zambia, Germany, Australia
• Group C: Spain, Japan, Nigeria, Brazil

Football at the 2024 Summer Olympics: when and where will the matches be played?

Football, along with archery, handball and rugby, is one of the tournaments that will kick off before the opening ceremony. The first matches of the football tournament will be played on 24 and 25 July. In general, matches of the football tournament will be played almost every day of the games except 29 July, 1, 4 and 7 August.

On 24, 27 and 30 July there will be group stage matches of the men's tournament, on 25, 28 and 31 July - the corresponding matches of the women's tournament. On 2 and 3 August there will be 1/4 finals matches, on 5 and 6 August - semifinal matches.

The third place matches will take place on 8 and 9 August for men and women respectively, while the final games will take place on 9 and 10 August for men and women respectively.

Seven stadiums throughout France, not only in Paris, will be utilised for the football tournament.

• Marseille - Velodrome (67,394 spectators) - Olympique de Marseille
• Lyon - Parc Olympique Lyon (59,186 spectators) - Olympique Lyon
• Paris - Parc de Prins (47,929 spectators) - PSG
• Bordeaux - Stade de Bordeaux (42,115 spectators) - Bordeaux
• Saint-Étienne - Stade Geoffrey-Guichard (41,965 spectators) - Saint-Étienne
• Nice - Stade de Nice (36,178 spectators) - Nice
• Nantes - Stade de la Beaujoire (35,322 spectators) - Nantes

History of football at the Olympic Games

Football is one of the oldest sports in the Olympics. The first competition took place back in 1900, and has always been part of the Games, except for 1932 (then the purpose of not playing at the Olympics was to promote a new tournament from FIFA - the World Cup).

Although football has always been part of the Olympics, it was not until 1996 that women were able to take part. Prior to that, only men took part in the competition.

The era of the nineties brought more than just this change. Since the 1992 Barcelona games only players under 23 years of age could take part, but at the next games in Atlanta a concession was made in the form of three players over that age, which we still have today.

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Also now you can't see, for example, the England team at the games. At the Olympics there is a united Great Britain team, which does not exist in the UEFA and FIFA confederations. A football team was created for the London 2012 games, which, however, had mostly English and five Welsh players.

But, the Great Britain team competed in the games up to and including 1960, and it is they, along with the Hungarian team, who have the most gold medals in the men's - three each. But the highest number of medals in general is with the Brazilians: two golds, three silvers and two bronzes.

Despite the fact that the Olympics are not highly regarded in the football world, famous footballers of today, such as Lionel Messi or Neymar, have also won gold at the Olympics - in 2008 and 2016 respectively.

The reigning champions of the men's tournament are the Brazilians, but they will not be able to defend their gold medals as they failed to even qualify for the games.

In the women's tournament, the Americans have a strong lead with four golds, one silver and one bronze. However, they haven't won the Olympics since 2012, while the current gold medallists are the Canadians, who won their first Olympics at the Tokyo Games.

When and where the finals will take place?

Both final matches will take place at the Parc de Prins in Paris. The men's final will take place on 9 August at 18:00 CET.

The women will play for the gold medals on 10 August at 17:00 CET and it is this match that will close the football tournament at the Olympics.